One Summer to Sundance
by Pixie Muffin
Summary: Adam, Clare/Eli. 4700 words. Over summer break, Clare needs convincing that she & Eli are meant to be. Eli recruits Adam to document the two of them together.  takes place between the first & second half of season 10. read and review?


NOTES/DISCLAIMERS:

Obviously, I don't own Degrassi and I don't own Clare, Adam, or Eli. This is rated K+ for mentions of the "weapon incident" in All Falls Down Pt. 2 - if you haven't seen that episode, don't read this or you'll be spoiled. Also, these terms come up in the story since it's about film-making & it's set in Canada:

(1) Genie - the Canadian equivalent of an Oscar/Academy Award, if my research proves right? (2) Sundance - a film festival in the US. (3) Toronto International - a film festival in, you guessed it, Toronto!

Hope you enjoy this.

* * *

Adam swung the camera into focus on the two of them, sitting across from each other on the high-rise stools at The Dot.

Close-up of Clare stirring the ice cubes in her coffee with a green bendy-straw.

Sharp pull-away to reveal Eli, watching her.

"Cut," Adam mumbled, and shut off the camera. He must have seemed like a total creep to the people milling around him, this scrawny kid on the sidewalk filming a couple through the window. He was still kind of pissed at Eli for dragging him into this latest scheme, but honestly? Adam had a feeling it would pay off.

They were talking now, and Eli tapped the saltshaker lightly against the edge of the table – the sign.

Tapping the saltshaker meant that whatever was going down, Adam should be filming it.

He turned the camera on again and slipped inside, settling into a seat at the closest table he could find, pulling his cap over his eyes.

He hit record.

"It's just" – Eli waved his hands – "I don't get why we can't be together."

"We can. Just – not now, I guess, is what I'm saying."

"Okay, I passed English and French, but right now? You're talking in a language I don't understand."

Clare laughed. "What I meant," she said, "was that I want you to be okay first. Then maybe we can be okay together."

What she didn't mention was how tired he was making her, how that knife in the wall had somehow separated them in a more-than-temporary way, how he was more trouble than she was used to and darker than she felt she could handle.

Eli reached casually for the pepper-shaker, tapped it on the table's edge, the sign for Adam to cut. Adam lowered the camera.

On second thought, he tilted it up a bit and left it running.

Eli lowered his voice. "I know I messed up," he said, "but don't give up on me."

"You know me better than that." She smiled, only halfway. "You should know I'm not a quitter."

* * *

"What've you got so far?"

The park was relatively empty that afternoon, and Eli and Adam had an entire picnic table to themselves.

Adam plugged his camera into the laptop resting between them. "Footage of you talking to Clare, footage of Clare lecturing you, footage of you and Clare being totally and completely in love with each other – you know, the usual."

"If she were 'totally and completely in love' with me, I highly doubt we'd be doing this right now." Eli pulled the laptop closer, studying the clips Adam had on his camera. Almost but not quite to his chagrin, Adam's summary was pretty accurate. Nearly a month's worth of footage so far and all of it was more or less the same.

"We need a new strategy," Eli decided.

"No, what we need is for you two to stop being morons around each other. Then again, I'm all for strategies. What's the plan?"

"Okay. So I want her to know that I'm done being reckless. I'm done being stupid. I want to be with her." He tipped his chin toward the computer screen. "How do we take all this and turn it into all that?"

Adam shook his head. "No clue. Why do you want to make a movie out of this anyway? Why not just tell her you've changed? Problem solved."

"That's not good enough." Eli played back a clip from that trip to the comic-book store the three of them had taken last weekend. "I want her to see it. If she sees how good we are together, sees it with her own eyes, maybe"– he paused the clip, freeze-framed on her laugh as she leafed through an issue of a horrendously crappy comic – "maybe she can forget all the messes I've made."

* * *

"I'm really curious," Clare said, not even looking at the camera, already used to its omnipresence, "to know what's been so interesting that you've felt the need to film every day this summer."

Adam shrugged, walking quickly to keep up with her as she all but skipped toward the swings in the playground. "Life moves fast," he said. "Gotta capture it."

Clare found a free swing and claimed it. Adam surveyed the park for Eli, but saw all colors – no men in black.

"Hey, Adam, can I ask you something?"

She stopped swinging, dragging her sneakers on the ground.

Adam lowered the camera. Still recording. "What's up?"

"What's been going on with Eli? And don't give me a crap answer just because you're sworn to some kind of guy secrecy. He's been looking at me like I flushed his goldfish down a toilet while it was still alive or something."

"I doubt he thinks you're a goldfish-killer."

"You know what I mean. Spill."

Adam looked around. Still no sign of Eli. "Listen, all I can say is that you should cut the guy a break. I mean, imagine how he feels."

"He poisoned Fitz and nearly got himself killed after I begged him to end the stupid feud. Imagine how I feel."

"He can imagine, trust me. That murdered-goldfish look? That's him, beating himself up over it. Every day. Until you forgive him."

She shrugged. "There's nothing to forgive. I'm just – worried, I guess. I mean, you can't fall for someone who crosses lines like that. When something happens, you're the one who gets hurt."

"He gets that. So, you know. Don't write him off just yet."

Clare looked away. She kicked off again, but didn't move. Just let the swing rock her back and forth.

Adam shut the camera off and gave her a little push, but she still sat limp in the swing, staring off into the distance.

* * *

"I'm close to done." Adam tugged at the flash drive hanging from a chain around his neck. "If you and Clare don't start making out passionately the second after you see it, I don't think I can ever speak to either of you again."

"It's coming along that well, huh?"

"It probably won't win any awards at Sundance or the Toronto International, but I'd say it's pretty good."

Eli smiled. "I still don't know how I'm going to repay you."

"Easy. A never-ending string of guys' nights and three-way dates. And chocolate. You'll buy me tons of chocolate."

"You got it."

They bumped fists and settled back into Eli's couch.

* * *

They decided to film one more day, the last day in July, before Adam got to work cutting up the summer and sewing it back together into a film.

Eli had gotten the three of them tickets to the private carnival passing through their part of Toronto that day, and surprisingly enough, Clare was the most excited to go. That morning, she was up and dressed and jabbing Eli's doorbell, all before 8 AM.

"Relax, Edwards, the carnival isn't going to stand up and walk away." Eli yawned and stretched in the doorway, but let her in.

"Where's Adam?" Clare set her bag on the table and fell into the couch like it was already hers. She hadn't slept for more than ten minutes at a time the night before, but aside from the dewy look in her eyes, the rest of her was in motion, ready to have fun.

"Here." Adam's arm shot up from behind the couch. The camera lay beside him, fully charged. "Give me like, two more minutes. Or, you know what? Maybe two more hours."

Clare glanced at Eli, who was smiling. They nodded, counted to three on their fingers.

Then they leapt over the couch, hoisting Adam up by the limbs.

Eli yelled, "WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD, IT'S TIME TO PLAY."

Adam kicked and groaned, but he was smiling. "Fine, okay, let's go."

Eli went outside to get Morty running while Clare and Adam made sure they were thoroughly packed.

"Sunscreen."

"Check."

"Water bottles."

"Check."

"Food money."

"Check."

"More food money."

"Check."

"Carnival passes."

"Um." Adam checked his pockets, then their wallets. He tore through Clare's tote bag, turning up nothing. "Crap."

"Check." Eli stood in the doorway, holding up his arm to reveal three neon green wristbands. "We're ready."

* * *

The ride to the carnival was freeing, the radio loud and the wind blowing salt and the smell of it over their heads, across their skin.

They unloaded quickly in the parking lot, and once they got through the entrance to the boardwalk, the three of them stood at the center like tourists with a broken compass and no clue which way was north. Adam spun in a circle, catching a dizzy array of lights and colors on camera. The Ferris wheel in the distance was lit all around, and the other rides flashed timed yellows, reds and blues like fireworks.

He readjusted the focus as Eli slipped an arm around Clare and said, "The fate of our day lies in your hands, Madame Edwards."

Clare said, "We're going on the Bone Crusher."

The guys let her take the lead, weaving through crowds lined up in all directions outside the candy and saltwater taffy shops. Eli fell behind.

He asked, "You want to go on first and I'll hold the camera for you?"

Adam kept a steady focus on the roller coaster looming ahead of them, a steep climb and a steep drop, the tracks looking rickety, sticking out at erratic angles. "Actually, I think I want to make it home alive today, so no thanks. I'll film."

Eli smirked. "I can't tell whether I'm humbled by your loyalty or amused by your cowardice."

"Stop using big words. We're at a carnival."

Eli and Clare flashed their wristbands to the guy operating the beast. They found a car for two near the back of the line and snapped, knotted, and secured all kinds of ropes and bars. The cars were made of the same cheap-looking wood as the tracks, wood that looked like it had just been chopped down and sawed roughly into shape that morning.

If Clare was feeling nervous at all, she played the fearless role well.

Eli raised an eyebrow in Adam's direction and smiled when the other boy gave him a thumbs-up with the hand not gripping the camera.

"I'll bet ten bucks Adam's filming our terrified facial expressions for blackmail purposes." Clare laughed and waved to the camera.

"I'd take that bet," Eli said, just as their car pulled off.

The ride started off, as most things do, slowly and shakily. Clare was tempted to lean over her side and check if the wheels were coming unscrewed or something, their car was wobbling so much.

In his typical mind-reading fashion, Eli said, "I don't think we're going to go toppling off the tracks today, Edwards." Then, seeing the blush creep across her face, he added, "And if we do, I have a lawyer on stand-by. You have life insurance, don't you?"

"Don't joke like that!" Her attempt at "anger" or maybe "irritation" fell closer to "genuine, hysterical fear," and Eli sensed it.

"Come on," he said. "Like I'm seriously going to let anything hurt you."

She laughed. "Yeah. Because you've been so good at keeping me out of life-or-death situations so far."

Eli darkened, lowered his head as their car inched up a steepening hill. The knife in the wall. It would always come back to that, the moment he stepped too far over the line and couldn't backpedal, couldn't do much else but hope he wouldn't have his guts spilled, not in front of her.

"I didn't mean it like that," Clare said, and their car buckled forward, now sitting on the top of the cliff. She could feel herself sliding a bit, but the fact that they were dangling about a hundred feet off the ground was suddenly irrelevant. Seeing that look on his face, that was an entirely different kind of terrifying.

"In movies, in books – everyone loves the dangerous guy. He wears black, he doesn't back down, and he always gets the girl. But in real life?"

Their car inched forward, wood creaking under the wheels.

"The guy's a screw-up, and the girl wants nothing to do with him."

Then, they were falling through the air.

* * *

"What was up with that?" Adam said, playing back the footage. "I mean, the quality on this thing isn't plasma-screen status, but you'd have to be blind to miss that tension."

"It was nothing," Eli said.

"By 'nothing,' you must mean, 'the most devastating event of the summer thus far.'"

"Such a drama queen, Torres."

"Drama king," he corrected, "and I am not. You and Clare are the ones raining drama all over my parade today. I kind of miss the days when you were ditching me to cuddle up with her."

"Yeah, well, I miss those days too. Minus the ditching you part, of course."

"Of course." Adam grinned. "You'd better bring back the sugary, romantic crap soon or this movie of ours might not have a happy ending after all."

"Trust me," Eli said. "I'm working on it."

He cast a sidelong glance at Clare, who was blasting water at a target. She was determined to win the stuffed pygmy marmoset hanging between the giant panda and the deformed-looking giraffe. She aimed the thin string of water at the bulls-eye, but the target was stubborn – probably rigged – and wouldn't fall down.

She reached into her bag for more money.

"Come on," Eli said. He and Adam approached the booth. The man running it blew smoke out of the side of his mouth and quirked an eyebrow.

Eli slid a dollar across the counter. "I'll take this round, if you don't mind?"

Clare withdrew her hand from the bag, slowly. "Oh. I don't mind."

The man at the booth tapped his cigarette against the counter, snatched up the money and nodded toward the water gun. Eli glanced at Adam, who had the camera steady and rolling, then at Clare, who was watching the gun quietly, avoiding his eyes.

He pulled the trigger.

The water flew out weakly. He twisted the gun around a bit, as much as he could with its base being fused to the counter. The target flapped, like being kicked up by a small breeze.

Eli stopped, tilted the gun up at a different angle and fired again.

The target folded up instantly, and the bells and lights inside the booth went off. Clare's mouth fell open. Even the guy at the counter frowned, surprised.

"I'll take that one," Eli said, and pointed at the furry monkey-like creature with a raccoon-ringed tail.

The guy rolled his eyes and grabbed the stuffed prize, pretty much threw it in his direction.

Eli caught it. He turned to Clare.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"So I won this weird stuffed animal thing. Gee. I sure do wish I could recall the name of its species –"

"_Cebuella pygmaea_. Pygmy marmoset."

"Oh, right." His mouth twitched a little. "Your third-favorite animal."

"Yeah."

"Hmm. You know" – Eli held out the prize – "maybe you should have it then."

She took the monkey and hugged it close to herself, grinning wildly into its fur. She shot up suddenly, onto the tips of her toes, and kissed him – quick – on the lips.

She said, "I owe you one."

He touched his mouth, a small smile pulling at its corners. He said, "Consider us even."

Some bells went off in the distance then, lights popping especially bright now that the sun was melting behind the booths and tents.

Adam shut off the camera. "That's a wrap."

* * *

"It's official," Adam said, handing him the flash drive the next afternoon. "Fresh off the film reel. Production on _Reasons Why Eli and Clare Should Stay Together, Make Many Babies, and Name At Least One of Them After Adam: A Documentary_ is complete."

"You should fire whoever was in charge of coming up with that title," Eli said, but he took the flash drive with a smile. "Can't wait to see it. I'm sure it's Genie-worthy."

"Of course. My Best Director speech has been typed up for months now."

Eli set up the laptop while Adam texted Clare. "can u be at eli's in 10 mins? urgent."

She replied five seconds later: "coming now."

"You want to run through it?" Adam asked.

Eli shook his head, eyeing the front door. "I like being surprised."

When the bell rang, he jumped. Adam got to the door first.

"Are you guys okay?" Clare pushed her way inside, frantic.

Eli stood, Adam stepped aside, and slowly, Clare relaxed.

She turned to Adam. "You gave me a heart attack! You said it was urgent."

"It is! I didn't say it was an emergency."

"What's the difference?"

"I don't know. You're the smart one."

She sighed. "What's going on?"

Eli stepped forward, nodding toward the couch. "Here. Take a seat."

She did, warily. Adam swung the laptop so that it faced her and Eli, turned the volume up to the maximum and started the film.

Eli's hand shot over to hold hers, abrupt, like it was disconnected from the rest of him. He felt a gentle squeeze in return as the screen faded in from black, Adam's lightly freckled face coming into view.

On-screen, he said, "Eli Goldsworthy and Clare Edwards are the two biggest idiots I know."

Then, "They are so obviously meant for each other, it's sickening."

(On the couch, Clare coughed out a one-note laugh.)

"For some reason, people forget logic when they're as in love as these two. They forget the good memories they've made and worry obsessively over the bad. They don't remember their dates. Only their arguments. In other words, they act stupid and make their close friends want to hit them over their heads with bricks."

The shot zoomed in, slowly. "But lucky for these two, they have me – Adam Torres. I'm here to show them the good and bad stuff together. I'm here to show you the reasons why Eli and Clare should stay together, make many babies, and name at least one of them after Adam. This," he winked, "is _Reasons Why Eli and Clare Should Stay Together, Make Many Babies, and Name At Least One of Them After Adam: A Documentary_."

("That title is horrendous," Clare noted.

"Hush," Adam said. "My masterpiece is playing.")

The next shot dissolved in, the whole screen filling with blue. Then – swinging down sharply – the camera focused on two people running through an empty parking lot on a crisp summer afternoon. One, a girl, her brown hair bouncing away from her face as she ran. The other, a boy armed with a fat water balloon. The sound was muted, so the scene was purely visual. Their faces pulled up into what must have been roaring laughs. The girl's whole body loosening as the clip rolled on, tension fading, if only for that moment.

The next couple of shots were similar – small moments caught, seemingly, by accident.

A shot of the two of them splitting a vanilla ice cream cone as they walked aimlessly around their town, camerawork shaky as the director tried keeping up.

A shot inside of a tight bookstore with gray walls and gray carpet, where the girl flipped through a comic book as the boy beside her made faces at the camera.

A shot of the girl resting her head against the boy's shoulder, eyes twitching like she was half-in and half-out of a dream. This shot zoomed out until the bench they were sitting on was visible, and the grass beneath that bench and the trees and sky above it were also visible, and then finally the two of them were just tiny human-shaped specks in the middle of the shot, where the sun blazed orange across the screen, casting a flare.

The transition to the next shot was blunt, jarring. The same girl and boy sat across from each other at a table in a coffee shop. The lens focused for a moment on the restaurant's name on a banner outside: The Dot – Bar & Grill. Then back to the couple, hunched stiffly over their drinks.

Next, the scene was indoors, and the conversation was audible.

The boy gestured with his hands. "_It's just - I don't get why we can't be together."_

In another shot, the girl sat idly on a swing in a park. Just the lower half of her was in the shot, so that her words seemed to be floating somewhere out of the camera's reach. "_You can't fall for someone who crosses lines like that. When something happens, you're the one who gets hurt."_

In the coffee shop again, the boy leaned in. "_I know I messed up. But don't give up on me."_

And the girl stirred her drink across from him. "_You know me better than that. You should know I'm not a quitter."_

The rest of the film played out this way, interspersing the good and the bad until it bled together. Their summer had been taken, split up and scattered, and this was the result. The arguments came up less and less as the movie rolled on, and eventually the screen was shot after shot of something good. Smile-worthy memories, strung together.

When the end credits began rolling up and off the screen – Director: Adam Torres, Producer: Adam Torres, Cameraman #1: Adam Torres, Cameraman #2: Adam Torres – no one in Eli's living room said a word. No one moved.

They could only tell they were still breathing because there was no other sound in the room.

Clare was the first to make something resembling noise.

She said, "Oh."

"Yeah. Definitely Genie-worthy," Eli said. He laughed.

"I didn't know you were doing this." She looked from Adam to Eli, at the two of them. "I mean, I remember Adam filming some of this – the comic-book store, the parking lot. But." She shook her head, not even sure what else she could say. Seeing the summer laid out like this was strange. Like being told, "You are happy," when you felt completely blank inside.

"The point of this," Adam said, as though it hadn't been glaringly obvious, "was to show you how good you are together. No matter what you're doing – arguing, talking, sitting without saying anything. And as much as I hate being the third wheel, I'd rather be with the two of you than have to pick a side. So." He turned to Clare. "It's up to you. You can be together – or you can be. Well. Not-together."

* * *

Clare ran through the film a couple more times that night, had Adam save it to another flash drive so that she could watch it at home, alone in her room, straight through until morning.

She hadn't even known she was capable of smiling so wide, the way she smiled around Eli.

And in the shots where they were talking, their heads bent and their voices low, she had never seen herself looking more frustrated, more worn-out over anything – not even midterms.

The whole movie, the whole summer, the whole relationship had stretched Clare to her extremes. She honestly could not remember a time when she had ever felt happier.

She called Eli's house and was strangely surprised when he answered the phone. She'd expected Adam. Or the voicemail robot woman.

When Eli picked up and said, "Clare?" she nearly forgot everything she had been planning to say.

"Eli?"

He laughed. She could hear the smirk in his voice through the phone. "Now that we know each other's names, how about you tell me what's up?"

She looked down at the flash drive in her hand, then at the computer screen behind her, frozen on a shot of him with his arm around her at the carnival that day. Into the receiver, she said quietly, "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry."

"Mind explaining that to me, since I'm the one who's been apologizing, begging for your trust all summer?"

She shook her head. "I trust you. Probably a lot more than I should trust anyone. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I've been forgetting the most important part of all this."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"The hallway. The knife. The whole being terrified and confused thing." Clare held the phone closer to her ear. "I've been forgetting that you were there too. It wasn't just me, going through it. I wasn't alone. And – I can't believe I'm saying this but – Adam was right. We faced that night together. I just didn't notice that maybe – maybe you've been trying to cope too."

He was silent. She could tell he hadn't hung up, though – a movie played on dully in the background.

He said, "I miss you, Edwards."

She squeezed the phone as tightly as she squeezed her eyelids shut. She tried to laugh. "We've hung out all summer."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah. I just wish you wouldn't say it like that. Like I'm gone for good."

"No. It's not like that. I miss you like I miss a cancelled TV show. I mean, sure, you can see some scenes online, or even buy the DVDs sometimes, if the video store sells them. But I don't want scenes or DVDs. I miss the real thing, on my TV screen, in my life, permanently. That's how I miss you."

* * *

She brought Adam's flash drive to Eli's house, considered dropping it in the mailbox and walking off, returning to her regularly scheduled life. But, of course, she couldn't do that. Just walk away.

She rang the bell.

Eli answered. She held up the flash drive before he could say anything, and he nodded, stepping aside to let her in.

She followed him into the living room, where Adam was draped over the couch.

As soon as he saw Clare, though, he sat up straight, eyes wide.

"Here you go." She handed him the flash drive.

He took it, but his eyes didn't leave her face.

She knew what he was waiting for, and she grudgingly admired how direct he was about it. She cleared her throat.

"After careful review and thoughtful observation," she said, "I've decided – and I mean this in a completely non-cheesy way – that two can be better than one in certain areas of life. In math, for example, two is always greater than one. And in English – it's easier to write dialogue between two people than to write a monologue that doesn't sound utterly lame."

"What about in Clare and Eli Land?" Adam prodded. "Can two be better than one there?"

She glanced at Eli, who was watching her, his face giving up nothing, no hint of emotion.

"It's not so much that two is better than one there," she said, carefully. "It's that together" – she clasped her hands – "is a whole lot better than not-together."

And the way her two favorite guys smiled then, she wished someone had been around to capture that on camera.


End file.
